Her name in his voice sent a quiet, unwelcome tremor through her, and she hated that it did.She kept her gaze fixed ahead, acutely aware of the carriage’s close quarters—and of her parents seated opposite them.
Still, she looked at him.Just briefly.The open sincerity in his eyes caught her off guard, made her pulse stumble.
The carriage jolted over a rut.She tipped toward him, and his hand came out at once, steadying her elbow.
She stilled, and so did he.
For a suspended moment, neither of them moved, as though the smallest shift might draw notice.His hand remained where it was—correct, careful, unmistakably restrained—yet the contact was impossible to ignore.
Her breath caught.She willed herself to steady it.
Nicholas withdrew his hand at last, slowly, deliberately, as though to prove—to himself as much as to her—that he could.
Their eyes met again.Something unspoken passed between them, taut and unresolved.
The carriage wheels slowed.
They were home.The familiar outline of her parents’ town house came into view through the window, a reminder—solid and immovable—of where she stood and what she could not afford to risk.If Nicholas discovered that she was B.Adroit and told her father…he would disown her.Or worse.
The carriage rolled to a stop.The footman opened the door, and warm lamplight spilled inside.
Bea drew a careful breath and straightened, schooling her features, even as her pulse refused to settle.
Nicholas deserved the truth.Not an explanation.Not a clever evasion.The truth.
The certainty of it sat heavy in her chest, for she had no notion of how one confessed something like that to a man who had just defended her honor as though it were his own.
She knew one thing for certain.Not here.Not tonight.
But as she prepared to step down into the lamplit street, an awful thought occurred to her.
Soon, she might have to choose between her secret…and him.
